29 September 2010

Super Smash Bros. Brawl is arguably one of the best selling fighting games ever made. The game's sales aren't the arguable part, but its status as a fighting game is. I know that the guys I've interviewed who play Brawl competitively would argue that it's just as much of a fighting game as Street Fighter or Soul Calibur. Do you think Brawl is a fighting game, and if so, do you think Brawl will ever be playable at EVO?

It’s a real fighting game. I didn’t always think that, but I changed my mind after spending more time playing both Melee and Brawl. We actually had Brawl on the main stage in 2008 (with items on!) and I thought it was one of the best tourneys that year, with some spectacular finishes and outstanding play. Most of the competitive Smash community prefers to play with items off, which is their call to make, but we try to play a kind of “no holds barred” style at EVO, until something is proven to be undeniably messed up. I can’t imagine how crummy Marvel Vs Capcom 2 would be today if we had started banning things the first time we thought something was “overpowered” or “too random.” (Source)The current FAS League play seems to be similar to the SSBB league play, or at least heading in that direction. Banning weapons is never a good idea so early in the game's development, since players haven't figured out counters; when you ban the weapons, they never will know how to counter them, reducing the amount of skill involved in competitive play. DysPatch, the league admin, even admits the M79 is not a problem in with smaller player counts:

Sep 07 12:56:15 DysPatch - yeah i think the problem is, you only see how effectives explosives are when you have a full serverSep 07 12:56:17 DysPatch - 1 on 1Sep 07 12:56:26 DysPatch - if you have an m79 and the other person an ARSep 07 12:56:31DysPatch -the person with the AR is going to win

So why the restrictions on a single weapon that the lead developer doesn't consider unbalanced with lower player counts? An over emphasis on league play and the leader developer catering to a small but vocal minority will not get FAS to the level of popularity that older versions of FA had.